No specious splendour of this stone <br />Endears it to my memory ever; <br />With lustre only once it shone, <br />And blushes modest as the giver. <br /> <br />Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties, <br />Have, for my weakness, oft reproved me; <br />Yet still the simple gift I prize,- <br />For I am sure the giver loved me. <br /> <br />He offer'd it with downcast look, <br />As fearful that I ,ight refuse it; <br />I told him when the gift I took, <br />My only fear should be to lose it. <br /> <br />This pledge attentively I view'd, <br />And sparkling as I held it near, <br />Methought one drop the stone bedew'd, <br />And ever since I've loved a tear. <br /> <br />Still, to adorn his humble youth, <br />Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield; <br />But he who seeks the flowers of truth, <br />Must quit the garden for the field. <br /> <br />'Tis not the plant uprear'd in sloth, <br />Which beauty shows, and sheds perfume; <br />The flowers which yield the most of both <br />In Nature's wild luxuriance bloom. <br /> <br />Had Fortune aided Nature's care, <br />For once forgetting to be blind, <br />His would have been an ample share, <br />If well proportion'd to his mind. <br /> <br />But had the goddess clearly seen, <br />His form had fix'd her fickle breast; <br />Her countless hoards would his have been, <br />And none remain'd to give the rest.<br /><br />George Gordon Byron<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-cornelian/
